Help Wanted. Struggling to learn

Japanese Language
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Hello Everyone, I’m learning Japanese, I know I am, because I have managed to get to level 5 :slight_smile: but to give you some perspective, I’m dyslexic, It takes me such a long time to read and speak (Japanese) I can read English well enough.

I’ve had tutor lessons and wanikani, I’ve tried reading books and watching films with subtitles. I’m also trying to do a wordsearch a day as well.

But ultimately, I’m really struggling with the slow progression. Does anyone have any tips? I’m so proud of how far I have got, I’m able to read very small katakana books. But honestly it’s taken me nearly 3 years to get to this point.

Studying Genki etc, is very confusing, I’m okay if my wife reads it to me, because she’s JLPT 4, but I don’t understand English grammar let alone, Japanese, It’s a very long process.

I’m on a trial of Talkpal, to see if that helps, but its clearly aimed at non beginners, the only bit I’ve been able to really understand is the describe a picture section. And I can listen to a sentence and parrot it back, 85% of the time, till they get really long.

I’ve tried Duo, and it’s fine, but I just tend to do the very basics to maintain my streak, I find the voices esp. zari very hard to understand. She’s so high pitched.

So all in all, that’s me, any ideas?
P.s we are going to Japan in January. Maybe immersion will help. :smile:

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If you have additional problems with reading – then it might be worth to subscribe to

Though it’s not free, it makes reading as easy as possible and is well worth it.
Everything is voiced by native speakers, and it also has a lot of notes on grammar.
You can look translation for whole sentences or translations for individual words.

Even if you can’t / don’t want to subscribe, iirc, first two articles in each section are free, so you can read those.

There are, of couse, many free reading resources as well:

https://drdru.github.io/twc.html

But Satori Reader is the easiest.

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I’d suggest focusing on the listening/talking part and then go back to “academic” grammar and reading a bit later. That’s how kids learn after all.
Maybe try taking lessons with a private teacher and do that with your wife? If she’s N4 then she could benefit from it immensely as well.

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Same, I think you’re going to have to go really heavy on conversation, listening and speaking, to “get” the grammar and vocabulary, and then leverage that to reinforce your reading.

(Probably the same way you did in English but you don’t remember how you did it if you’re a native speaker)

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Reading Japanese is hard. Harder than reading English, and harder still as a second language; I’m sure dyslexia won’t be making it any easier. I’ve been reading for 4 years now, and it’s still slow and tiring compared to English.

Anyway, reading is an excellent way of learning a language but not the only one, focusing on listening / watching Japanese at the right level for you might be a good way forward. YouTube is full of Japanese learning material, with a fair amount of comprehensible input videos from complete beginner to more advanced, re-watching them again and again is a great way to learn. If you can afford a weekly iTalki or similar lesson with a sympathetic teacher who can adapt to the difficulty you have reading that would also be really effective.

Ultimately, understanding spoken Japanese makes learning to read it easier anyway, and unless you have an interest in Japanese literature in its native form reading lagging understanding and speaking doesn’t have to be a problem.

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Thank you all for your input, I have some great suggestions there. I look forward to trying them out. :grin::+1:

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